A peek inside the Target data breach...

For those of you curious as to how hackers managed to pull off the Target data breach, The New York Times has published a lengthy article outlining their plan. The NYT report starts with the terrifying statement that "It was, in essence, a cybercriminal’s dream," and continues with the revelation that "Entering through a digital gateway, the criminals discovered that Target's systems were astonishingly open — lacking the virtual walls and motion detectors found in secure networks like many banks'. Without those safeguards, the thieves moved swiftly into the company's computer servers containing Target's customer data and to the crown jewel: the in-store systems where consumers swipe their credit and debit cards and enter their PINs."

Meanwhile, yesterday two men were arrested in Texas with a batch of 96 cards stolen in the breach. As one police officer reported, the criminals who lifted shoppers' info are "selling the data sets by region" with the two men arrested holding cards of South Texas customers.